Microfluidic chip helps solve cellular mating puzzle

The findings, described in the Feb. 18 Advance Online Publication of the journal Nature, shed new light on the way cells send and receive signals from one another and from the environment through a process called signal transduction. That process, when impaired, can lead to cancer or other illnesses. "Yeast is a very simple single-celled organism, but in many respects it operates much like a human cell," said Andre Levchenko, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins and supervisor of the research team. "That’s why it’s been studied for many years -- because what we find out in yeast often holds true for humans as well. In this study, we looked at how yeast cells signal one another when they want to merge, engaging in a type of mating behavior. Human cells ‘talk’ to one another in amating similar way, and it’s important to understand this process." The microfluidic chip was invented and patented by a team that included Levchenko and Paliwal, who teamed up with Alex Groisman, a physicist from the University of California, San Diego. In place of the microscopic electrical circuitry of a computer chip, their device consists of a series of tiny channels and chambers, some 20 times smaller than the diameter of human hair... Whole article: "www.eurekalert.org":[ www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/jhu-mch022107.php]

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